update 3 November 2013 IODINE DOSE AND DOSING: the traditional approach is that of eg the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University and Wikipedia advocating the recommended daily allowance of 150 mcg 0.15mg a day for adults; and the safe upper limit at ten times that intake; but quoting up to eg 7mg a day for treating fibrocystic breast disease; but a single dose of ~100mg KI for nuclear exposure..

But comprehensive discussion on maximum iodine dosing by the Weston Price Foundation (2009) quotes to much research, eg by MDs Dr Guy Abraham, David Brownstein, Broda Barnes ea – using for therapy of disease 6.25mg up to 50mg/day, but historically up to 10gm a day (if this wasnt confusing mg with gm!).

The maximum available pharmaceutical grade 15% Lugols iodine contains about 100mg/ml ie ~10mg a drop, ie a drop a week orally provides ~1.4mg ie 1400mcg a day- 10times the maximum recommended maintenance daily allowance RDA, although that is conservatively what healthy Japanese are estimated to ingest in their traditional natural diet ..

So the conservative practical approach is to use 2% (Lugol’s) iodine ie containing 20mg/ml or 2mg per drop, about 1.3mg iodine/drop. While allergy to natural iodine has apparently never been reported, the prudent might start with a test dab on the skin for using it as a paint. For oral use, a test dose orally might be eg a teaspoon (4ml containing about 25 mcg iodine) of a mixture of 1 drop 2% Lugol’s in a glass of water.

Abraham and Brownstein 2005 reported Evidence that the administration of Vitamin C improves a defective cellular transport mechanism for iodine. This affirms the principle that no essential micronutrient should be taken in isolation but ideally as part of good natural diet (now hard to achieve on the now traditional fast food genetically modified urban mass diet)- or with a balanced multisupplement including more realistic vigorous doses of vitamins C and D, and magnesium, selenum, boron, etc ..

Fot those who have concerns about the safety, toxicology of DMSO, the detailed randomized controlled trial of 1967-8 is exhaustively reported by Dr Richard Brobyn , confirming no serious adverse effects topically or systemicaly up to 90 days.

THE DEADLY HOAX OF OMEGA6 SUPPLEMENTS AND THE CHOLESTEROL HYPOTHESIS: A NIH team in Bethesda has just published a remarkable review in BMJ of the Sydney Heart Study 1966-1973 with a review of recovered data, confirming that substitution of omega6 linoleic acid as safflower oil and margarine in modern marketed staple diet was a monumental deadly marketing hoax for the past 50 years, since it almost doubled deaths in those men studied from age 30-59 years. Wikipedia notes this deadly delusion that safflower (oleic/ linoleic) oil is health protective. The same applies to oleic acid– high in olives, many nuts eg sunflower oil, and animal fats especially when cooked- as Wiki summarises, excess omega6 increases the risk of breast cancer, and by Stephen Cunnane’s hypothesis, aggravates inflammation eg arthritis, cardiovascular and malignant, by worsening marine omega3 deficiency. . This may not apply to some exceptional groups- Reverse epidemiology – but is supported by hard science as weighed up carefully by Chris Masterjohn and his thoughtful dissection of Dr Daniel Steinberg’s The Cholesterol Wars

Perhaps our expert ornithologists and sea researchers can find good support for their argument in birds and marine life- why do warmwater fish have so little marine oil?

there is still zero support against good fishoil supplement for cooler climate populations on literature search.

a 2012 Univ Virginia analysis concluded that “With the possible exceptions of Vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids there is no data to support the widespread use of dietary supplements in Westernized populations; indeed, many of these supplements may be harmful.”

and recent new papers promote fish oil supplement- but mostly for people in the colder northern hemisphere or airconditioned cities, offices, factories, homes. .

Just two recent 2007/2009 papers express some doubt about the potential risk of fish oil triggering atrial fibrillation. But I have had worsening familial atrial fib for 23 years , and a tsp a day of cod liver oil helps control it.

I cant find any reference supporting their argument that pure modest-dose fish oil supplement- as all authorities recommend. – is dangerous except Peskin’ and Rowens’.

BUT their argument may be valid for people who live in warm climates. South African cities are certainly not warm for much of the year; and the more industrious work in airconditioning when it is warm. Their argument against fish oil supplement might certainly be valid for those who live in the tropics outside cities ie latin America, North and Central Africa, the middle east, northern India-Pakistan, accross subtropical asia and the near-equatorial pacific.islands., who thrive on coconuts.

Peskin’s theory that low-freezing point fish oil is essential only for denizens of the cold deep may well apply also to human and animal inhabitants of the semi-arctic/antarctic land masses or living at cool high altitude like Mexico city.

It rings a bell with the opposite: coconut oil (melting point 24-26C) being staple food and so heathgiving for those living in hot (coconut palm) climates – it thins in more than temperate climates (20 to 40C) , hence may have a different protective lubricant/rheological effect to the vital antifreeze benefit of fish oil in human and animal/marine dwellers living at -20 to <20C. .

Thus it seems rational that I, we now balance my 1tsp codliver oil a day with 1 desertsp coconut oil twice a day, and advise accordingly – the best of both oils. . .

for seriously ill pts I recommend up to 2gm fish oil concentrate 2x/day, with up to 60gm coconut oil twice a day, if tolerated. .

Rowen and Peskin’s published references (other than vegetarian tribes that eat virtually no seafood) for their contrary viewpoint are in their 2011 book,

Does their theory apply to more affluent people who live and work mostly in controlled temperatures (the mid twenties) in 1stworld countries? ..

So if you live in a hot city with warmed houses and offices, combining the two oils makes sense for you too. Arctic and antarctic circle outdoor dwellers certainly need their marine oil.

while Rowen supports Peskin’s antifishoil argument, analysis may justify both oils depending on the climate the population lives in eg fish oil in the icy latitudes, coconut oil in the triopics- and both in balance in the temperate zones.

go back to the Peskin-Rowen book – even just their joint summation at the end: They stress that those who eat no seafood and live long are 5 tribes of humans: vegetarian Adventists- SDAs – who destress, and walk/exercise a lot and also do not smoke, altho they may live in all climates in USA- where presumably they are mostly caucasians ; but SDAs have total racial/tribal diversity . The other longevity claims in closed tribal communities are heavily doubted. More recent researchers have concluded that the older people get, the more they tend to exaggerate, confabulate their age because it brings them eg more attention- eg the tribes Rowen/Peskin list – the Hunzas of Pakistan, Okinawans of Japan, Vilcambans of Equador, Abhascans of the caucasus, not to mention our own oldest old whether in tribal villages or in our cities. . That would explain why they live at such diverse altitudes and latitudes. And isolated tribal people are mostly poor, dont have mechanized transport, and have to work outdoors till they drop,; and as % of their communities, the young leave to find work or get massacred/ conscripted, kidnapped, banished/ sold as slaves in wars against invaders, so their aging seniors are all that are left in those areas.

Peskin/Rowen ignore that by proven Darwinian evolution, land-ambulant mammals evolved : from micro-organisms to eg mammalian coelocanths only about 400 000 years ago, in deep ocean waters, and hence are very oily. But mammalian evolution dates back about 160million yrs; and our endothermy– ability to thermoregulate arguably dates from the dinosaurs and thus birds about 300million years ago.

Perhaps human endothermic adaptation evolved when the first homo sapiens evolved at the tips of Africa and migrated from Africa around the globe some 10 000 to 100 000 years ago ( ie before and after the last Ice Age that started 40 000yrs ago and ended about 20 000yrs ago); thus spreading from temperate sunny climates to cold semi-arctic lands of Europe, Asia, Iceland, Greenland and Canada, and extremely hot equatorial/desert regions.

Hence we adapted from obligatory hot climate survival at up to 50C – the coconut eaters- to icy conditions down to -40C – who survived on antifreeze fish oils as a staple. Fish oils freeze apparently between 18C and -50C (DHA

update: 4 Feb 2013 HALOGEN AND HEAVY METAL IMBALANCE:

As radiologist Dr Jeff Dach stresses now, Drs Abrahams and Brownstein and many others have repeatedly reported the overwhelming evidence that Iodine Treats Breast Cancer. Whether this is taken orally, topically or most rationally both ways- by mouth and by deep massage driven in by DMSO- is a matter of conviction and zeal.

Conversely areas with chronic iodine defciency– like Africa – have a high rate of goitre, hypothyroidism through to obesity, vascular disease, growth impairment and cretinism- mental slowness and retardation. And perhaps not incidentally also have much higher rates of endemic infections, fibrocystic breast disease, hypertension,heart and kidney diseases, and cancer.

But while iodine supplementation in salt was a good idea elsewhere, salt overload is a major contributor to hypertension in black Africans, so iodized salt is not the answer; and the fast food cult with salting and biltong – dried fish and meat – and cheap local cigarette smoking and alcohol – has worsened the hypertension problem.

It is increasingly recognized that it is the chloride rather than the sodium in salt that is the culprit in salt-related hypertension. So we have overload of three prevalent toxic halogens aggravating iodine deficiency here- chloride in diet and as chlorine; bromine that has crazily replaced iodine in bread; and fluorine added to drinking water where it is not already toxically overloaded in fluorosis areas.

So far from just for thyroid deficiency, iodine – plus selenium plus magnesium plus sulfur- replenishment has become crucial both as major anabolics, to reverse deadly iodine deficiency, and as displacer-chelator (along with the century-old Nobel-prize winning EDTA) of deadly bromine, fluorine , lead, mercury, cadmium, iron and aluminium overload (Guy Abraham) – all common in criminally polluted South Africa where industrial warfare has ravaged the subcontinent since the late 19th century. .

Who cares about selenium supplements and balance? It is harrowing to see a recent study from Univ Pretoria that “A total of 896 maize grain samples were obtained from all the maize silos throughout South Africa (231 silos) and analysed for selenium (Se) content. Of the samples analysed, 94% contained below 50 μg selenium/kg DM and can thus be classified as deficient from an animal and human nutritional point of view. Maize grain in South Africa is therefore a poor source of Se for animals and humans.” Yet absorbable selenium deficiency is a critical factor in the risk of AIDS, let alone cancers and other infections. The art of selenium balance is to use organic selenium supplement, but unlike iodine therapy with multimiligram doses, , no more than 400mcg/day selenium to avoid selenosis.

This in turn is catastrophically aggravating the worsening poverty, unemployability, malnutrition and thus grant dependency of the masses, and the worsening crisis in the shortage of qualified and competent administrators, politicians, scientists, lecturers, nurses etc..

DMSO, Lugol’s iodine and coconut oil thus join fish- codliver oil -all with melting points around our comfortable habitat temperature – as a group of vital cheap antioxidant especially brain micronutrients for South Africa. And it is brains, intellect that we all need above all else from conception to grave.

UPDATE 2 Feb 2013. Dr Cynthia Koelker MD is a modern family practitioner in Ohio who muses on DMSO as effective non-prescription pain relief. A recent NaturalNews.com review notes “Miracle cure’ controversy and why people should use DMSO for cancer, inflammation and more; There is evidence that DMSO can cause cancerous cells to become benign. DMSO can pass through human skin like water and enter cells. It can also stop or slow the development of cancers, such as breast, skin, bladder, colon, and ovarian cancer. Some people use it for cancer prevention. DMSO is used to help patients in withdraw from conventional cancer treatment and is promoted as an immune system booster.
Cancer centers use DMSO to protect healthy cells from chemotherapy and to decrease side effects from the deadly drugs. The DMSO Potentiation Therapy uses DMSO to allow chemotherapy to target cancer cells. This allows doctors to use extremely small doses of chemo, which lowers profits for the drug companies. No doubt the use of DMSO with conventional treatment, or better yet with other natural cures, is blocked because of the effect on drug profits.

A California research group in 2010 noted that Intractable and untreatable pain from cancer remains a challenge, major impact on patients’ quality of life and survival. A significant number of patients receiving analgesic therapy with opioids report persisting pain of a higher intensity than the pain in those who were not on this class of drugs. DMSO is a naturally derived, inexpensive, non-toxic solvent and pharmaceutical agent that has been demonstrated to have numerous health enhancing and therapeutic benefits. In the present article, we provide the scientific evidence and substantiate possible application of DMSO as a well-tolerated excitatory modulator in the management of cancer pain.

A 2009 North Carolina University study by Satia JA, White E ea.of supplement users over 10 years ie 770000 patient years showed surprising benefits in cancer reductions with use of MSM as well as fish oil, melatonin, St Johns Wort (all against colon cancer); and chondroglucosamine (lung and colon cancer) . But Garlic use associated with 1/3 increase in colon cancer.

Hence it is apparent that DMSO-MSM – like coconut oil- is a major natural healer and potentiates many drug treatments including against cancer and pain; and thus it follows that far lower doses of other medications may be needed if DMSO is used.

UPDATE: 27 January 2013 Stefanie Seneff ea at MIT point out that perverse modern industry has subverted agriculture and nutrition in 1. creating sulfur deficiency in crops (and thus in humans) through oversupplementing phosphate at the expense of sulfur; 2. driving down optimal cholesterol levels (ie cholesterol sulfate) through combined obsssive futile cholesterol restriction and cholesterol-busters eg statins; and 3. the overload of fructose in processed food. So increasingly both fast -processed -food eaters and the poor are sulfur deficient since they dont eat much food sulfur –“eggs, onions, garlic, and leafy dark green vegetables like kale and broccoli, Meats, nuts, and seafood; Methionine, an essential amino acid, that we are unable to synthesize, is found mainly in egg whites and fish. A diet high in grains like bread and cereal is likely to be deficient in sulfur.This deficiency is worsened by acid rain and soft water- and worsens the epidemic metabolic syndrome, diabetes , vascular disease, Alzheimers, and cancer.” She reviews why these diseases are much lower in those living in volcanic mountainous areas eg Iceland, South America where sulphur abounds in food, and along with enough ascorbic acid (also seriously deficient in processed foods) is the backbone of vital cholesterol sulfate and its daughter sterols (vit D3 sulfate, the corticosteroid and sex- and heart – ouabain- hormones).

She points out the crucial role of iron sulfate in energizing cell metabolism by insulin and glucose, depositing needed cholesterol in cell membanes and promoting myoglobin and brain strength instead of adverse tissue, hemoglobin and especially brain glycation AGES – advanced glycation endproducts.

Is it surprising that (not just the rare patients with serious hypercholesterolemia eg familial, nephrotic, cirrhotic who needs statins) but the progressive deliberate successful poisonng of the entire UK-USA population with statins by Big Pharma aided by the FDA and most Govt Regulators, to drive down healthy average cholesterol levels to hypocholesterolemia, is notorious for causing brain fog, depression, fatigue, dermatitis, muscle pain/dissolution (rhabdomyolysis) and liver-kidney- heart dysfunction , while doing nothing to combat insulin resistance, obesity and diabetes?

It is speculative as to when nutrigenomics – ie costly genetic testing – is going to prove widely useful in real live clinical practice to provide useful diet guidance for our common lifestyle and aging diseases.

Already in 1995 Shen and Murphy at Wisconsin University showed that while amyloid proten fibril deposits are a neurotoxic cornerstone of Alzheimers’ disease in mice and man, pure DMSO totally prevents the formation of amyloid betasheets at least in testtubes.

In 1999 Cherry ea in Australia and 2004 House ea in Staffordshire confirmed the adverse effects of aluminium and ferric deposits in Alzheimers; and the potential benefits of heavy metal chelators like EDTA with enough magnesium and calcium.. .

and by 2009 Gupta ea in India showed also on the workbench that garlic extract – ie sulfur- both prevents amyloid sheet fibrillation and dissolves it.

So there are different safe nutritional ways of slowing if not dissolving amyloid plaques as well as atheroma plaques in Alzheimeirs with combinations of minerals, vitamins and other antioxidants/ chelators including sulfur foods like DMSO, MSM and garlic.

But already by 1957, MacDonald ea at UCLA affiirmed the primary role of calcium and sulfur in bone healing after fracture in rats. Yet the first Pubmed entry on sulfur deficiency disease in human nutrition – from a casava diet- is from Nigeria in 1968. and the latest from India in 2012 from their staple cereal-legume diet

A 2012 study Julien ea from Quebec and Greece shows important benefit of DMSO against excessive tau phosphoprotein deposits in Alzheimers Disease.

Like GABA, Melatonin is a prime ubiquitous brain hormone that (like the sex steroids ) also declines from age 30years, that profoundly maintains memory by preventing both hyperphosphorylation of tau protein and amyloid beta protein, in melatonin doses reported from 3 to 9mg/night.. theories about its therapeutic role go back 25 years on Pubmed.. so melatonin is conveniently combined with the supplement GABA before bedtime, while GABA is the ideal daytime anxiolytic for these distressed patients.

23 January 2013

For some time many of us have been taking and recommending the multisystem benefits of evidence-based natural micronutrients – fish oil, coconut oil, vitamins, minerals, and biologicals like HRT and metformin –dimethyl guandine HCl – all natural supplements.

Now we have added medicinal natural DMSO liquid, the universal miscible solvent, never mind its crystallized sister form DMSO2-MSM.

DMSO gives early and permanent preventative benefits without risks in many musculoskeletal, cardiac and neurological conditions. It is the only remedy registered in USA for chronic interstitial cystitis, and solely for that rare condition. But it is reported major benefit against trauma, thermal and radiation burns and scars, all infections, sinusitis-otitis, goitre, and pain including headache, gingivitis, dry socket; infertility from tubal blockage; dermatitis; burns, asthma; arteritis, arthritis, lumpy mastitis, diabetic and viral (eg shingles and herpes simplex) and other neuritis, and ischemic/varicose and diabetic ulcers and swollen varicose legs.

DMSO thus understandably has good synergy with the similarly anti-inflammatory antioxidants like tumeric, fish and coconut oils; and metformin which also like DMSO and MSM crosses membranes well including into the brain.

Ongoing experience suggests that sore or lumpy breasts including new painful lumps months after excision and radiotherapy be massaged daily orinitially twice daily: first with coconut oil, then Lugol’s (15%) iodine, then medicinal grade(98%) DMSO to improve deep penetration of the iodine to promote healthy tissue regrowth from deep. It is encouraging how tender lumps disappear within days , including on repeat breast mapping with mechanical tactile Sure Touch scanning.

Adverse effects: apart from possible smell and taste (which some of us don’t experience), pure DMSO may cause redness and burning, as may strong iodine; this is avoided either by diluting the DMSO in a bit of water; or better by applying coconut oil first, then the iodine then last the DMSO.

One must be careful starting with DMSO. Extracted from woodpulp, it is volatile, warms on mixing with eg the oils, or undiluted on the tongue. But there is no evidence of toxicity apart from the smell – which my metabolism apparently does not produce even on a tsp of 99% medicinal DMSO twice a day.. Megadoses of up to a gram per kg have reportedly been used in severe conditions. Fair-skinned people are more sensitive to it so doses should be lower, starting with massage of sore/superficial lesions and/or just ¼ tsp by mouth. Any taste of it is obviously easily masked by mixing it with the essential oils (fish oil, coconut oil) and supplement powders listed, and whatever else is desired eg yoghurt, fruit squash or just water.

So the two dimethylsulfa sisters cost the same and have the same benefits against pain, chronic cystitis, arthritis, brain trauma, radiation and cancer http://www.dmso.org/ . But only the melted ie liquid form at household temperature is the strong penetrating solvent. It’s not clear whether oral DMSO gives better blood levels than DMSO2 –MSM, since only the DMSO is melted at body temperature whereas DMSO2 is not..

The purist argument against DMSO/DMSO2 as sulphur supplement is that sulphur is not an essential element. But this is obviously fallacious since our chief components are the elements CHOPNS carbon hydrogen oxygen phosphate nitrogen sulphur- we cannot survive without ingesting these. Only plants and microbes can apparently photosynthesize living tissue from CHOPNS by breathing air and absorbing water.

In particular, no evidence can be found overall in the accessible literature supporting one old report that a DMSO product was withdrawn in Japan because of cataract concerns.. A 2011 review of transdermal joint DMSO use from Arizona University found no evidence of human eye toxicity in their series or in the reported literature.

JC de la Torre in 1975 wrote “DMSO has been tested in various experimental injuries of the central nervous system CNS in relation to other therapies. It appears a useful drug in acute extradural mass-forming lesions, middle cerebral artery occlusion, respiratory anoxia, and spinal cord injuries, in rhesus and squirrel monkeys, dogs, and rats. The data from these studies suggest that in the experimental models, DMSO is clearly superior to no treatment, and appears to be more generally effective than other comparable treatments. No satisfactory answer has yet been found to explain the beneficial effects of DMSO…..”

and 2009 JC de la Torre and SW Jacobs Oregon University , ea described Pharmacology of DMSO in cardiac and CNS damage: “The pharmacological effects of DMSO administration include some desirable properties that may be useful in the treatment of medical disorders resulting in tissue injury and compromised organ systems. These properties include the reported effects of DMSO on impaired blood flow, suppression of cytotoxicity from excess glutamate release that may result in lethal NMDA-AMPA activation, restriction of cytotoxic Na(+) and Ca(2+) entry into damaged cells, blocking tissue factor (TF) from contributing to thrombosis, reduction of intracranial pressure, tissue edema, and inflammatory reactions, and inhibition of vascular smooth muscle cell migration and proliferation that can lead to atherosclerosis of the coronary, peripheral, and cerebral circulation. Review of the basic and clinical literature on the biological actions of DMSO in cardiac and CNS damage or dysfunction indicates that this agent, alone or in combination with other synergistic molecules, has been reported to neutralize or attenuate pathological complications that harmed or can further harm these two organ systems. The effects of DMSO make it potentially useful in the treatment of medical disorders involving head and spinal cord injury, stroke, memory dysfunction, and ischemic heart disease. “

Rheology is obviously crucial for health. . The lower the melting point and the higher the viscosity the healthier. Coconut oil (melts at 24C) and DMSO(19C) a universal solvent miscible in both water and oil have similar melting point well below the temperature of the healthy human (+-37C), while fish oil http://www.high-fortune.com/En-index-SW04.asp. melts at similar temperature (20C, freezes at 10C.) Since the brain is about 20% omega3 ie fish oil, it perhaps explains why both coconut oil and DMSO with similar melting point and rheology –good flow- to omega3 have such profound benefit crossing the bloodbrain barrier and fighting vascular and inflammatory degenerative disease eg Alzheimers, as well as against cancer, which while supported by vascular growth factor VGF depend on hypoxia and thus acidosis..

PLoS One. 2012;7:e33361. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0033361. .Methylsulfonylmethane suppresses breast cancer growth by down-regulating STAT3 and STAT5b pathways.Lim EJ, Hong DY, Yang YM. Ea Konkuk University, Seoul, South Korea. Breast cancer is the most aggressive form of all cancers, with high incidence and mortality rates. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the molecular mechanism by which MSM inhibits breast cancer growth in mice xenografts. MSM is an organic sulfur-containing natural compound without any toxicity. In this study, we demonstrated that MSM substantially decreased the viability of human breast cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner. MSM also suppressed the phosphorylation of STAT3, STAT5b, expression of IGF-1R, HIF-1α, VEGF, BrK, and p-IGF-1R and inhibited triple-negative receptor expression in receptor-positive cell lines. Moreover, MSM decreased the DNA-binding activities of STAT5b and STAT3, to the target gene promoters in MDA-MB 231 or co-transfected COS-7 cells. Through in vitro and in vivo analysis, we confirmed that MSM can effectively regulate multiple targets including STAT3/VEGF and STAT5b/IGF-1R. These are the major molecules involved in tumor development, progression, and metastasis. Thus, we strongly recommend the use of MSM as a trial drug for treating all types of breast cancers including triple-negative cancers.

Invest Radiol. 2008:43::298-305..Magnetic resonance imaging assays for dimethyl sulfoxide effect on cancer vasculature.Cyran CC, Brasch RC ea. University of California San Francisco: To evaluate the potential of quantitative assays of vascular characteristics based on dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using a macromolecular contrast medium (MMCM) to search for and measure effects of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) on cancer vasculature. treated control (n = 8) and DMSO-treated (n = 7) human breast cancer xenografts (MDA-MB-435) in rats were imaged dynamically by MMCM-enhanced MRI before and after a 1-week, 3-dose treatment course. CONCLUSION: Reductions in cancer microvascular leakiness induced by a 7-day course of DMSO could be detected and measured by dynamic MMCM-enhanced MRI and were confirmed by microscopic measurements of the leaked macromolecular agents in the same cancers. Results support the robustness of an MMCM-enhanced MRI approach to the characterization of cancers and providing first evidence for an in vivo effect of DMSO on cancer blood vessels.

Neoplasma 2004;51:460-4.Acetaminophen (paracetamol) and DMSO modulate growth and gemcitabine cytotoxicity in FM3A breast cancer cells in vitro.Bilir A, Guneri AD, Altinoz MA. McGill University, Quebec, Canada. Addition of antioxidants to chemotherapy is an unresolved problem in oncology. It is still an issue of debate, whether antioxidants may reduce rough cellular toxicity and thereby the systemic side effects of the chemotherapy, without sacrificing the anti-tumor efficacy. Tumor-sensitivity towards gemcitabine a new anti-cancer agent can be increased with anti-inflammatory agents. Acetaminophen and DMSO are two unique anti-inflammatory and anti- oxidant agents with unrelated structures, both able to block RR and COX, simultaneously. we monitored efficacy of acetaminophen andDMSO to modulate growth and gemcitabine sensitivity in breast tumor cells, Peculiarly, acetaminophen alone stimulated S-phase, which was not accompanied with enhanced plating, rather resulting in 40.3% growth inhibition at the 96 hour. DMSO alone significantly diminished both the plating and S-phase, which resulted in 71.7% growth inhibition at the 96 hour. Gemcitabine drastically reduced S-phase and plating until 72 hours, yet at 96 hours it lost its efficacy to suppress the S-phase with concomitant 2-fold rise in cell numbers in comparison to 72 hour time point. Both DMSO and acetaminophen brought S-phase to around zero percent in combination with gemcitabine until 48 hours, yet they both reduced early cytotoxicity of gemcitabine at the same time interval. However, at the 96 hour, they both strongly augmented gemcitabine efficacy to block S-phase and prevented the rise in plating.

Oncol Nurs Forum. 1991;18:683-5.Case report: topical DMSO for mitomycin-C-induced skin ulceration.Alberts DS, Dorr RT Arizona Cancer Center. Mitomycin-C is a commonly used anticancer drug for patients with advanced anal, breast, colorectal, gastric, lung, or pancreatic cancers. Mitomycin-C can cause severe necrosis and ulceration when extravasated inadvertently into skin and soft tissues following IV drug administration. Local applications of heat, ice, and common antidotes such as glucocorticosteroids and hyaluronidase or sodium thiosulfate have failed to reduce the experimental toxicity of these vesicant reactions in mice. Plastic surgery with split-thickness skin grafting may be required to palliate local pain symptoms and loss of function, although some extravasations heal without any local treatment. This brief communication summarizes two case reports of the treatment of severe mitomycin-C venous extravasations using topical applications of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO). Although the authors’ experience represents the results of DMSO interventions in only two patients, the response to treatment in both patients was so pronounced that others may find this useful in their practice.

This column has regularly reviewed the conflicting views and evidence on osteoporosis; BNP and breast cancer; and the safe multisystemic efficacy of using the score of natural supplements- including appropriate combined hormone replacement therapy – that safely oppose both osteoporosis – bone and muscle frailty- and the associated chronic major involutionary diseases of aging especially vascular disease, dementia and cancer. .

The antireflux proton pump inhibitors PPI drugs notoriously aggravate osteoporosis; and for average reflux are not necessary with use of slippery elm, apple cider vinegar, simple calmag and sensible diet and lifestyle. It has been known for years that PPIs more than double risk of osteoporosis, so why take them?.

On the other hand, the pluripotential hormones of darkness and light – vitamin D3 and Melatonin – combined with the other mulibeneficial natural supplements that synergistically relieve/ reduce insomnia, reflux pain, cancer, depression, memory loss and all other significant major chronic degenerative diseases of aging.

As this column regularly updates, Metformin too is a natural supplement (plant) co-hormone- a veritable panacea- that reduces all major chronic disease and mortality by about a third- including cancer; and dementia perhaps via reducing serum amyloid levels.let alone tissue oxidation, glycation, vasculopathy. BPN has none of these extraosseous benefits, only deadly risks.

So middleaged patients are at terrible risk of anxiety depression hypercortisolemia, frailty fractures, vascular disease , cancer and dementia after cancer, especially with sex hormone suppression or blockade. They do not need the myriad risky designer drugs touted for prevention of more cancer etc, all they need urgently and permanently is the scores of appropriate natural balanced supplements as this column regularly reviews- most of which supplements can simply be mixed in a tub of customized powder blend to be drunk twice daily. .

“the action of the bisphosponates BPN is to inhibit osteoclastic action and thus reduces bone resorption; the patients tell the story- they get immediate and sustained relief from bone pain; if they are on opiates the need is much reduced. Of course palliative RT is valuable, but often if pain recurs after RT the BPN give welcome relief, at least in my experience.

The IV BPNs are also very useful in the oft-times encountered hypercalcemia often threatening myeloma- and other cancer patients. I am not however, too conversant with D3 in this setting!”But the first reference links are the latest in the clinical field of BPN and cancer.

Other than in terminal cancer cases- when it doesn’t matter what convenient pain relief is used- the problem with bone pain in cancer always is, what is the cause? either bone resorptionfrom the catabolic effect of cancer (via eg high parathyroid hormone PTH); OR cancer eating away at bone itself, OR something else common OP unrelated to the cancer.?

To put it the other way round: where is the evidence that BPN – at cumulative cost and risk- adds benefit to the multiple attack? where the evidence that- unlike testosterone and vitamin D3- BPN has any benefit except on bone pain? Hypotheses based on in vitro and animal and human cell culture studies have not translated into even good observational comparative evidence favouring BPN as good benefit:cost ratio for osteoporosis or cancer.

The oncologist answers in the traditional mode, by experience that BPN works. But evidence-based medicine EBM asks where is the comparative evidence for BPN to challenge the evidence that we have better multi-attack without BPN – when these supplements are not equally commercially promoted and tested in controlled trials for the usual commercial reason ?

The dream of drug manufacturers is eternal, that their raincheque designer drug- statin or BPN or antihypertensive- will prove to be a safe multisystem panacea as is metformin and many other supplements like vitamin D3 or testosterone. But after more than 30 years of BPN and statins, no trial in humans has yet shown this for BPN or statin or any other original designer drug.

Given the cardinal role of both sleep and these three micronutrients in multisystem prevention, can we afford not to take, promote vigorous melatonin, vit D and B12 especially at night?

This column last reviewed vitamin D (soltriol, calciferol) in depth in October 2009 (there are now 47800 vitamin D entries on Pubmed) ; and melatonin 6 weeks ago (there are now 15400 Pubmed entries on it)..

Sundays validly celebrate the supreme Sun’s life day in that without the sun, planet earth would have been nothing but barren frozen rock – no life, no surface movement. other than orbiting. And Mondays celebrate the supreme goddess of crucial night in that without dark and the moon (and the tilt of the earth’s axis) there would be no tides, no seasons, no water, no life as we know it – and no melatonin, no healing, restorative sleep-awake cycle.

By Roman- Christian tradition/ mythology, most in the world (except those who follow the older sabbath Saturday – for whom Sunday is the first working weekday) start if not celebrate the new week with the rest sun(day) (hormone equivalent soltriol), followed at midnight by the moon(day) (hormone equivalent melatonin) day 2 the first workday of the week.

Sleep’s melatonin may be the leader of our hormone orchestra/cascade, but without the sun’s soltriol from sunbathing our skin, we surely would not exist as an upright species. Would life have advanced further than subterranean/ deep-ocean organisms and worms without the sun and thus plenty of soltriol?

Now modern science has at last decoded Greek mythology that sun and moon -Helios and Luna/Selene (aka later Artemis, Diana) – are also our brother and sister for health; the two main complementary hormones driven by bright light and dark darkness: the complex fat-soluble steroid soltriol C22H44O3 (vitamin D, calciferol) and the complex water-and fat-soluble indole melatonin C13H16N2O2. The latter – from mela, black- was coined as recently as 1958 because its secretion in the pineal is inhibited by light- unlike its independent paracrine secretion in other tissues eg bone marrow and gut. Dr Russ J Reiter of UTexas San Antonio has published some 730 papers on melatonin since 1969.

And Soltriol- from sol – sun, light- was coined perhaps 15 years later by Dr Walter Stumpf because its secretion (from the biggest endocrine gland – skin) is dependent on sunlight activating it there. This surely correlates with humankinds divine evolution from amoeba to amphibian to mammal; and then leaving behind quadripeds, to evolving higher bipedal primates. But then, unlike the dark furry apes, some black humanoids lost their fur and melanin as they migrated from the tropical eden of Africa to darker colder subarctic climes with longer nights especially in the last Ice Age.

They emerged paler, more skilled and creative, intellectual – lapping up whatever sunlight they could find, topping up vitamin D from eating fish, Arctic sealife and cod liver oil, and making more melatonin and less melanin (than their brothers in the Southern hemisphere) from the longer and darker winter nights. Hence it may be postulated that this is why the paler farther northern ‘caucasian’ and yellow races earlier developed more skills and creativity (and greed, and cruelty) than their ancestors who stayed and evolved /migrated languidly nearer the tropics.

But the penalty of western scientific technology and sales hype meant that in barely the past century, most of the world’s population adopted clothing, and spending most of the time indoors in artificial light, jobs and nightlife. And average natural lifespan more than doubled ie the majority began to outlive their biological timeclocks set by their pineal glands eg the age of menopause- which age only a small better-off minority achieved a century ago…

Melatonin is apparently the only endogenous significant antioxidant that declines with aging, eg ‘nighttime melatonin peaks in youth may reach 30-40 times the daytime basal levels’. . Hence we who survive well past the magical new midlife age of fifty, now suffer increasingly from decades of steadily increasing deficiencies of melatonin and the prime steroids- both gonadal, adrenal, heart and skin, let alone our other crucial diminishing biological essentials like our marine omega3 oils and eg chondroglucosamine, arginine, alphalipoic acid, ascorbic acid, ribose, carnitine, carnosine, 5HTP, GABA, acetylcysteine, xanthines and minerals.

Now at our southern autumn equinox- shortening colder wetter days and thus more disease eg infections, cancer, depression, hypertension, arthritis- the everlasting Dr Walter Stumpf out of the blue kindly and intuitively sends us new inspiration (see below) with which to convince disbelieving doctors and patients to take balanced light and dark, AND supplement especially vigorously their respective soltriol and melatonin- in abundance.

Dr Stumpf (studying and publishing medicine for over 60years now, papers on Pubmed from 1947) already in 1988 had written the Endocrinology of Sunlight and Darkness, and The first Eye; and the Second, Third and Fourth Eyes Relationships between Skin, Pineal, and Lateral Eyes. that both melatonin and vitamin D synergistically promote health from the brain to pituitary to thyro/parathyroid, thymus, adrenals, gonads, reproductive organs, kidneys, intestine, bone, growth and blood.

Now we are at last applying the benefits of his pioneering work in an increasingly diseased aging 1st-world population, by encouraging everyone to take vigorous supplements of soltriol calciferol eg 100iu/kg vitamin D and melatonin eg 1 to 100mcg/kg body mass/day (titrated slowly as required up to tolerance) – perhaps especially together in the evening to promote better sleep and night growth- bone and all tissue regeneration.. . .

Neurologist Dr Gominak ‘s letter to him of course highlights other vitamin deficiencies common as we age, even in the well-off who may thus live the longest; who may still be more prone (due to rich diet, alcohol, malabsorption, obesity, metformin etc) to more organ impairment, and deficiency of especially vitamins B12 and D .

The Japanese (Owaka ea) have for at least 20 years done studies showing the importance of vitamin B12 repletion in sleep disorder. Hence the wisdom of if possible checking baseline blood values of especially B6, 9, 12, and C, and calmag and potassium, before adding especially these to at least an evening dose of vit D and melatonin. As Dr Gominak says, vitamin D has also been recognized as important for promoting sleep and wellbeing for at least twenty years. But of course, in clinical practice, patients rather simply pay much less to take health-extending vitamins as injection (B12 load) and then cheaply orally together with the non-prescription hormones, than pay for the costly (and not necessarily helpful) laboratory tests. Proof depends on clinical response, not laboratory results.

Its a couple of months since I persuaded my bright but miserable bed-and wheelchair-bound mother-in-law at 86years to start taking weekly vitamin D 50 000iu and nightly melatonin. The only time we have been able to coax her out into the sun for years was last christmas day. Her constant pain in her ever-infected knee replacement at last no longer requires handfuls of painpills daily.

Nutritional balance including of hormones and vitamins is essential for good sleep – but especially melatonin, GABA, 5HTP, thyroid, cortisol, gonadal hormones, and vitamins B and D . And these are major all-health benefit- in contrast to dulling hypnotic addictive prescription drugs. .

VITAMIN D3 THE PANACEA ANABOLIC STEROID: Multiple new reports attest to the increasing evidence for the benefit of even >1000iu a day of vitamin D3 supplement- but especially doses which increase blood levels consistently to above 100nmol/L (Leventis ea 2009 – even 300 000iu orally perhaps 3 times a year under supervision – without toxicity) against not just rickets, osteoporosis frailty and fatigue but also against cancer (Garland, Holick ea 2009), rheumatoid arthritis activity (Turhanoğlu ea 2010), hypertension and ischemic heart disease (Barnard ea 2010), diabetes (Kositsawat ea 2010) and psychiatric disease (Humble 2010). Considering that 300 000iu every 4 months (ie about 2500iu/day) costs less than US$0.50 a month retail, there are few panaceas that are as low cost for major benefit, ease and safety- especially for administering to the aging, to keep them independent out of institutions. Vitamin D has finally been recognized as THE anabolic steroid for all.

Who has not enjoyed a delicious nap in warm (not hot) sunshine – especially with a blindfold to shut out the light! ie the best of dark (melatonin) and sunshine (vit D) and warmth…

Dr Stumpf writes recently:

Dear Neil, It is amazing how the perception of vitamin D has changed, is changing. The company in Japan, I was an in house-consultant for three year between 1992 and 1995, had a large committment to the development of vitamin D analogues for the ‘safe’ treatment of osteoporosis. Our discoveries of multiple receptors not related to calcium homeostasis barely impressed the management.

The Japanese company has since been swallowed by Roche (50.1 percent of the capital) and abandoned fully vitamin D R and D; now all is anticancer therapies. I presume, the reason for the change is the Roche realization that there is no money in vitamin D analogues (related to calcium) and that vitamin D3 is a food supplement, available over the counter, also that the danger of hypercalcemia has been overstated by the calcium vitamin D experts for too long.

The market drives the development. For the public, the development in the vitamin D-soltriol field is favorable. Attached is a letter of a California Neurologist who is interested in sleep problems and who found vitamin D beneficial in a number of cases. I alerted her to melatonin and sent her your article. Again, we do not know enough about the targets of melatonin, a very important hormone, probably the yang for the yin, while in certain physiological events acting as the yin. I am attaching also an earlier article related to that..

I have spent the last month reading everything I can about vitamin D and I have several comments: The first is that you got it completely right back in the 1980’s and it has to have been terribly frustrating to have the rest of us blockheads not understanding (for years on end) what is so completely obvious to you. I just finished Holick’s review in NEJM and I realized that I had already read it but that his treatment of the subject is so incredibly boring and “calcium focused” that the good stuff at the end comes across as accidental observation instead of the organized bio- logic that you provide, which is why it didn’t integrate with what I’ve been thinking about.

The second is that it appears to me that just in the last year your vitamin D viewpoint appears to have reached critical mass. Every other patient or physician I talk to about your ideas has just heard something about vitamin D and several of the local physicians here have apparently just come back from a lecture that opened their eyes to….. etc, sort of a religious conversion, “vitamin d is not just about calcium”. One of my patients who just started vitamin D said her friend called her from california and told her that her own doctor had just called and apologized to her for thinking she was crazy. I’ve made several of those calls recently though with most of them i knew there was something goofing up their sleep I just didn’t know what it was that was doing it. In October I’ll be going to lecture about your ideas, as well as my findings in sleep to the “Pain Experts” (and what a misnomer that is) in Austin. Last lecture was about the fact that all of their patients had a sleep disorder that was the primary cause of their pain.

This year it will be that the sleep disorders are caused by either B12 or D deficiency in the great majority of the patients, and that ( fortunately for our patients) in about five years all pain experts will be out of a job because the rest of medicine will realize that this is an easily treatable condition. I would expect that your original articles, which are now being referenced by all the primary clinical researchers in vitamin D treatment and deficiency, will become more and more known, finally. I would really like to talk to you about my observations about sleep disorders as it adds some of the final aspects to your hypotheses. Most of what is written about sleep in the journals is still very primative for complex political reasons having to do with falling between medical subspecialties. Although I have a very good sense of how B12 affects brain stem pacemaker cells, I don’t have any good ideas about the cell biology of how low D is goofing everything up.

Most of the D deficient patients have a pattern of REM related apnea with multiple awakenings to light sleep and some important leg movements. I think the reason why the original rickets kids had predominent leg pain despite osteomalacia everywhere was the leg movements in sleep. That’s a consistent complaint in the patients with periodic leg movements during sleep regardless of the cause. When a part of the body does not get appropriately paralyzed in sleep it doesn’t get repaired.

In my view your ideas are every bit Nobel Prize material. Your science is rigorous and careful and your conclusions are clearly every bit correct. It is so odd that medicine is so incredibly inflexible that when given an obviously correct idea that is not the “party line” everyone in that field is particularly blind to its truth because it challenges the assumptions they build their thoughts on. It has always been so, but this is “vitamin D blindness” is particularly tragic because every day in the hospital I see people’s lives ruined by this one small thing, a vitamin deficiency. The implications of not accepting your ideas back in the 1980’s is hundreds of thousands of people who have lived painful, tortured lives or have died unnecessarily. Over the last 20 years I have seen thousands of patients who would have benefited from your views, I could have really helped them and I didn’t. I will be writing up the sleep study results of the B12 deficient patients and the D deficient patients and would benefit from your thoughts about cellular effects. There have to be many things about vitamin D that you have figured out but have not published as they weren’t part of the actual experiments.

It is therefore crucial that hormone balance be measured – clinically if not in the laboratory- by midlife or at the onset of any major disease or trauma, and regularly thereafter; and the youthful optimal balance restored permanently.

It is as negligent to omit to do so as it is to assume that our memory bank (ie knowledge), bodies, computer, building or car dont need maintenance checkup, pressure, top-up, electrical, oil and/or paintwork renewal.

Ailing and aging humans are too gullibly, stupidly fobbed off with misinformation that modern science has no remedies for degenerative diseases – when there are indeed natural ones ie not designer patentable drugs developed and marketed solely for profit by the mafia drug industry for which – if they can help it- only disease pays.

That working people so easily deceive themselves about their health protection and rights is what politics and business are all about – the naïve assumption that most politicians, professionals and big business are successful in the interests of humankind, not their own ruthless shortterm profits.

But all you have to do is ask your health professional how many hours a weekhe/she puts into keeping up with the latest literature that matters to patients, attending and contributing to academic meetings, and seeing and treating the indigent.

And like your doctor, all you have to do is check both Pubmed and a few different objective websites about your condition and experience with your drugs. It’s like your car and computer: always check security updates, and check yourself the tyre pressure and water/ oil levels; and your computer powersurge and internet security, and backups; and your own bloodpressure and waist girth – or you may not have a second chance. .

Surprisingly, there are only 8 papers on melatonin and aging human sexual activity on Pubmed search..But is it a surprise that there are 186 melatonin AND sexual activity papers on Pubmed since 1992? including many on a designer melatonin agonist agomelatine– of which one of the latest – in Prescrire a month ago- concludes: “agomelaline new drug. Adverse effects and no proven efficacy;.. Very high doses of agomelatine are oncogenic in animals. The risk in humans is not known. Dizziness, gastrointestinal and cutaneous disorders have been observed. Agomelatine is probably hepatotoxic“.

PHYSIOLOGICAL HORMONE BALANCE VERSUS SYNTHETIC DESIGNER SUBSTITUTES:
But there are lots of self-reports on Google confirming what physiology tells us, that hormone balance is what matters.

Doctors (and hence patients) choose at their peril – at the behest of Big Pharma, heavy marketing- to ignore physiology – what nature teaches us about optimal function . Big pharma made a killing before WW2 with the isolation, patenting and mass sales of natural supplements eg hormones starting with thyroid and insulin. But these soon ran out of patent, so Big Pharma has zealously employed massive armies of researchers and lobbyists to develop and promote synthetics cribbed from natural products ie synthetic designer drugs. The high number of $billion-a-year raincheck drugs is a tribute to their clever marketing and sleight-of-hand concealement of adverse reports – but not for the many thousands of patients who have suffered or died as a result of eg fenfluramine, Vioxx, Prepulsid and lately sibutramine, rimonabant, glitazone, and vaccines….

But Industry has not yet succeeded in generating a synthetic designer ie patentable form of thyroid hormone to exploit the millions with thyroid deficiency, nor a substitute for the human heart-made hormone digoxin, which – like the uniquely lifesaving plant extract metformin- defy the inventiveness of Big Pharma’s ruthless quest for megabuck profits.

Big Pharma wants us to forget that all modern drugs for chronic use were and are based on ancient endogenous and mineral/plant based drugs .

These designer drugs have been so cleverly marketed by Big Pharma – and thus politicians, governments which Big Pharma massively funds directly and via taxes and job promises – that for chronic use let alone acute illness they have almost wiped out the use of highly effective remedies used for millennia. eg Lithium and metformin were ignored by the FDA for 25 years despite being the gold standard elsewhere for bipolar and type 2 diabetes respectively. For common hypertension, rauwolfia-reserpine is still the goldstandard bedrock treatment in a dose of 0.1mg/day or less , combined with the also-suppressed perfect synthetic (potassium-magnesium- calcium conserving saluretic) vasodilator amiloretic amilozide in low dose. But the antihypertensive drug industry has bought so many in the antihypertensive trials and regulatory hierarchy that Europe and Britain have abandoned reserpine; and in South Africa these “experts” beholden to Big Pharma have removed these gold standard drugs from firstline therapy recommendations and even from the formulary of state clinics because they were too cheap at below a US$ a month. .

The Chinese already 2500 years ago were using gender-specific sex human hormones derived from the ‘sublimation’ of youthful human urine to treat gender-specific diseases and deficiencies. But since the extraction of sex hormones from the urine of humans in this age of viral and prion plagues (let alone the aesthetic and logistic problem of buying billions of gallons of human urine each year) is not on, Wyeth – with the increasing monopolistic complicity of the FDA-USA government- simply substituted human hormones by xenohormones- horse estrogens (from the mass farming of tethered catheterized mares) and synthetic progestins- for both contraception, and HRT for women. Hence the problems for older women of the Womens’ Health Initiative which used exclusively Wyeth’s PremPro.

And industry attempts to keep a stranglehold on the vast diabetes market by continually synthetising new depot forms of human insulin; and synthetic alternatives to the gold standard and only plant-derived antidiabetic prohormone (metformin, in use for well over 50 years, the only drug ever that has been tested in a 20year randomized controlled trial, and proven to be the only prescription drug that reduces all major diseases and thus deaths by almost 50% -) by continually bombarding the market with largely unnecessary synthetic designer drugs to discourage use of metformin, diet and lifestyle change. These include new sulphonylureas, acarbose, glitazones and now gliptins, none of which have undergone longterm trials, and which uniformly prove (unlike established old drugs) to have major adverse effects even at registered doses.

Like amphetamines, orlistat and rimonabant have had to be progressively restricted- sibutramine is the latest to be cancelled last week in Europe. due to adverse effects that the suppliers finally failed to prevent becoming common knowledge. Is it surprising that the USA FDA – which runs on the massive funding of and input from Big Pharma- has still not suspended sibutramine use there?

And surprise surprise- Wikipedia dismisses metformin for weight loss with one reference, although there are scores of trials including major 3-5year prevention trials on three continents that show that metformin use in the overweight (even BEFORE diabetes occurs) produces both significant fat loss and approximate halving (30 to 80% reduction) in new diabetes and new cancer.

And wiki confirms that while the human hormones leptin, amylin and gliptins-incretins- work in synergy with all other hormones, micronutients to potently regulate optimal sugar and fat and energy metabolism, none of them have been marketed as the natural forms- that is the last thing that Big Pharma – the FDA- Uncle Sam wants when with some effort they can already market designer adaptations to produce more golden $billion raincheques.

This despite the fact that Turek’s 2010 USA transcontinental trial showed recently in rodents that combination injectionof the natural hormones amylin and leptin “decreasedfood intake (by 26%) and reduced body weight (by 15%) and epididymalfat (by 78%)”. 15% of 100kg body mass is 15kg weight loss“. A year before, Ravussin ea published the 6 month trial in obese humans of the designer derivatives of leptin and amylin confirming that the patented combination indeed lowered body weight by 12.7%.But the common adverse effect of the injection was nausea.

MELATONIN DOSE:
Hypnotics including melatonin promote sleep, not sex. Hence sex works best after sleep rest ie well after midnight, early morning. But unlike melatonin, designer synthetic hypnotics have dangerous side-effects and addiction problems, without any longterm benefits.

Clearly for anyone not in an institution or at risk of cancer, melatonin dose should be kept as low as is prudent to optimize sleep – not sedate.

This dose may be as low as 0.05mg/night- hence dose should be titrated upwards from a pinch to the average optimal of 0.25mg/night, but as high as is well tolerated without hangover/daytime drowsiness.

So for the hyperanxious-anxiety-panic disorders, melatonin may well best be taken in the morning at low dose, and early evening to unwind.
That low dose reverses impotence in rats is not surprising- 10 to 100mcg/kg as used in rodents equates to between 1-10mcg/kg in humans ie 0.05 to 1mg in adults.

Studies show that the right dose for sleep in humans is about 0.1 to 0.3mg – not the 3mg caps/pills that are unthinkingly marketed, prescribed and swallowed by unwise patients.

Melatonin in excess can worsen depression and cognition; and even be arousing.
but since it generally improves sleep and growth and reproduction and energy balance and immunity and bloodpressure and cancer control and anorexia – fragility reversal,
it should equally clearly be supplemented at night in physiological dose ie 0.05 – 1mg- combined with especially vitamin D3, and during the day or for an hour before sleep with bright (sunshine or artificial light) exposure, which dramatically improves Parkinsons disease..

LEVELS OF MELATONIN AND LIGHT:
The recent Bronowski Institute study shows how bright fluorescent light (does a TV or computer screen count? – surely?) should be encouraged for an hour before bedtime since it markedly reduces Parkinsons; but in older people should then be followed by a melatonin supplement dose for all the antiaging reasons. As Rabbi Michoel Gourarie writes in Personal Growth, turning on a light in the dark- even the one small candle of ancient times- can do as much to cheer up one or a host of people.

So especially in institutions sleep should be preceded by bright light for an hour before lights out.
The most most important aspect for us all is sequentiallight (both via stimulation and via vitamin D – soltriol -from sunlight) ; and then darkness for sleep’s melatonin value in insomnia & fatigue and especially against autism, ADHD, cancer, hypertension, diabetes (insulin sensitizer), & especially for retarding menopause ie infertility.

The recent trials data increases greatly the potential of melatonin against premature aging ie against cancer as well as against gonadopause that was already widely promoted 15 yrs ago by Regelson, Colman and Pierpaoli – In 1995 Pierpaoli in The Melatonin Miracle summed up how melatonin given to aging mice maintained youthful size gonads, significantly higher sex hormones, and extended their healthspan and lifespan by 30% ie to a century in human terms.

The first 7.5year case followup of melatonin benefits in delaying menopause came from Poland 2 years ago; but already in 2005 an Italian team Bellipanni ea showed in a 6month study that melatonin 3mg/day “abrogates hormonal, menopause-related neurovegetative disturbances and restores menstrual cyclicity and fertility in perimenopausal or menopausal women. At present we assert that the six-month treatment with MEL produced a remarkable and highly significant improvement of thyroid function, positive changes of gonadotropins towards more juvenile levels, and abrogation of menopause-related depression.”

Previously in 1992, Sandyk ea in New York proposed that “There is evidence that pineal melatonin is an anti-aging hormone and that the menopause is associated with a substantial decline in melatonin secretion and an increased rate of pineal calcification.” . And in 1984 Aleem ea had shown “Suppression of basal luteinizing hormone concentrations by melatonin in postmenopausal women.”ie that supplemental melatonin can suppress rising LH – although the primary cause of menopause is gonadal aging- exhaustion,- which in both men and women leads to the compensatory rise in LH if the pineal and pituitary glands are themselves still capable of responding to feedback. The primary cause of hot flashes is due largely to falling estrogen level, with all other menopause symptoms being caused by gonadal hormone exhaustion. But Bellipanni’s 2005 study showed that melatonin supplement could produce better gonadal and thyroid hormone output.

So all aging folk should take the combined hormones vitamin D3 about 5000iu/day, and melatonin, building slowly to perhaps 1 – 3mg at night, from age 30yrs if not earlier; but with cancer,under medical supervision, building to vit D3 10 00 to 50 000iu/day ( monitoring the serum calcium) and melatonin to perhaps 40mg/d – plus a titrated dose of the anticancer prohormone metfornin. .

While anti-thrombosis immune-boosting fish oil is easiest taken as 2 gram caps a day of concentrated ie 80% omega 3 fish oil,

and immune-and sleep-boosting melatonin powder at bedtime with the dose titrated to what suits you- be it 0.1 or 10mg ,

and enhanced vitamin C powder (buffered with bioflavinoid) both as snuff and orally titrated to your tolerance –

the other supplements are available as a single powder blend drunk onece or twice a day- to which is easily added extra iron for menstruating/ pregnant women or chronic bleeders. .

But remember that with ever-tightening airline security, it is wise to leave your powders in your baggage in the hold, take only pre-packaged ie blisterpack pills/ oil capsules or clearly prepackaged liquid medicines with you into the cabin, to avoid having ptentially suspicious powders/liquids confiscated by security officials before you board.

The Frisinas’ work (Univ Rochester) showing that estrogen protects but progestin worsens hearing is news, brought to our attention by Dr Joe Mercola’s email. Another nail in the coffin of the synthetic progestins.

The Frisinas stress that age-related hearing loss (presbycusis) is the number one communication disorder, and it is one of the top three chronic medical conditions of elderly persons.

Does human progesterone, and the aldosterone mimic Florinef have adverse or protective effect on hearing? Considering that all studies show largely opposite none-gyne effects of human vs synthetic progestins, androgens and estrogens, such discordance seems unlikely.

These questions have huge implications for the better-off, since tens of millions are using progestins/ progesterone (for both contraception and HT) without objective evidence of need or benefit: risk; and millions are using prednisone (or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories) where androgen +- cortisone/ aldosterone might be much better.